


Feels like a lifetime

by keysburg



Series: Agent Carter S2 [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Airplanes, Canon Disabled Character, Cars, Daniel's POV, Gen, Hot Weather, Moving, Moving On, Phone Calls & Telephones, Season 2 ep 1 spoilers guys beware, Separations, Spies & Secret Agents, chief sousa gives me life, not terribly angsty, science cop, time zone troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysburg/pseuds/keysburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before season 2, Daniel adjusts to his new position and his new home.  Peggy's not a part of it.</p><p>OR</p><p>Why Daniel never returns Peggy's calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels like a lifetime

He doesn’t like flying, he decides on the way. Daniel doesn’t remember the last time he flew, since it was under a haze of drugs and pain. Before that the only planes he flew on were troop transport, too many men packed into cargo holds with too much gear. Fear took up much of the space as well; it was tangible, a pressure that made it hard to move and harder to think. 

He thought the passenger plane would be more comfortable, but it chafed in all new ways. The seats were more comfortable, or would be if it weren’t for his blasted prosthetic. They had more cushion but not enough on his lower back. Being forced to sit with his legs in directly in front of him--locked into one position--caused the socket to dig into his stump. He couldn’t stretch it out like he did under his desk, couldn’t move it laterally to shift the pinch of the prosthetic to the side. It was a relief when they stopped in Denver and he got to walk around, but it pinched even worse when he settled in his seat for the second flight. 

With it came the anxiety he had been pushing down since he accepted the promotion. He was mostly excited, but there was a certain lingering edge behind it. He might not like California. He could be Chief, but there was plenty to learn and often meant making a mistake. Around him there was more an atmosphere of pleasure and excitement with less unease than he associated with airplanes. The passengers with him weren’t a bunch of men pressed into service, but instead men and women with the means to travel. Daniel suspected he had even less in common with them than he had with the men of his army regiment, culled from all areas and all stations of New York. In the end, it was just another short burst of discomfort; it happened. Sometimes you couldn’t help it, and you just had to wait it out. 

However, it was all worth it once he got off the plane. He knew Los Angeles would be warm, but it was one thing to know it and another to feel the heat sink into your muscles, the beads of sweat start to stand up on your spine. It was almost blindingly sunny and so very green. It might only be 2700 miles from New York, but it felt a world away from the icy, windy and dreary winter he had left that morning. He had wanted a change--he certainly got one.

It wasn’t just the promotion either. Setting up the new office was certainly an interesting experience. 

The building was ready when he got there; all that was needed was for him to select its cover business. Rose seemed surprised when he chose the pseudonym of Auerbach. He played it off as part of the strategy to prevent interest in the “talent agency.” The fact that it sounded German would hopefully be a deterrent to the general public, but for Daniel that was the benefit of the name. Auerbach was where he caught his lead, and every time he heard the word he still felt himself snap to. The trick to picking a good pseudonym was all about including a subconscious trigger in order to create a seemingly natural response. 

He was given a few current SSR employees that transferred in from other offices, but the only person to follow him from New York was Rose. He thought he would enjoy the opportunity to hire his own staff, but it ended up being much more difficult than he imagined. There were significantly fewer veterans still left at odds now, compared to when he had joined the SSR. In the nearly two years since, people had started to move on and there were just fewer experienced people available. Not that he was opposed to cultivating his own talent; it was just difficult to determine who had the aptitude for investigation from a resume and an interview. Aptitude, which if found, still had to be molded, guided, and developed. 

So when Peggy called the first time, Daniel was deep in a pile of resumes and had instructed Rose not to bother him. He got the message when he went to lunch, and he made a mental note to call her back. When he got back from lunch he had to start setting up interviews, and before he knew it the clock was showing 4 p.m.. That was 7:00 New York time, so Peggy would probably be eating dinner. That is if she stopped working long enough to eat these days; she had been out trying to dig up a lead on Dottie Underwood for months. Either way, he wouldn’t reach her just then.

She called again, of course. Just then he had decided he definitely needed a car to get around. In New York it hadn’t been a problem to take the subway or a cab, but in Los Angeles everyone drove and it meant Daniel needed to as well. A car was easy enough to find, in his favorite color even. One of his new SSR hirelings reconfigured the pedals so he could drive it with his good leg. That was still the easy part--the hard part was adjusting to it. He knew how to drive before the war, although he had not done so often. It took more practice than he wanted to admit to get used to the unfamiliar pedals and the traffic patterns in California. So he practiced every day, during early mornings and most of his evenings, getting home very late. Somehow he never found time to even consider calling her back, although Rose brought it up--twice.

That was also the week he met Violet, so he was doubly distracted. She wasn’t like the nurses he was used to at either the New York or Los Angeles VA hospitals. Most of them were scarred old battle-axes, even the ones who weren’t actually old. Vi had still been in school during the war and graduated shortly after it. She had missed the bulk of the returning wounded, the traumatized. She wasn’t naive - even nurses can’t get through school and stay that way - but she seemed innocent somehow. Or at least free of the baggage he knew he carried, as did his coworkers at the SSR who had seen action, as did most of the VA staff. She reminded him, not unpleasantly, of the girl he was dating before the war. When he was with Violet, he could at least pretend to be the man he had been back then. He could have something not touched by the darkness of the war or his work. And she liked him for him, and not for his position or the pay raise that came with it. She was smart too, a quality all too underdeveloped in most of the women he managed to meet. It was hard to schedule time together between her hours at the hospital and his own unpredictable schedule, every date feeling like a moment stolen away, something rare and special. 

Rose handed him the third message on a Thursday in April. He had just got back from lunch. It was 1 p.m.--4 p.m. in New York City, so the time difference wouldn’t be an issue. 

Daniel paused, the note still in his hand.

If he returned Peggy’s call, what would they even talk about? Her ongoing search for Dottie Underwood, probably. But he had his own cases he should be worrying about. Would he tell her about Vi? She might have her own fellow now or worse, want to talk about why they never got that drink. 

He thought back to his phone call with his father the night before. Pop had cheerfully reported that the weather in New York had been a lovely 65 degrees. It was already 85 there in LA, and his Hawaiian shirt was damp under the arms from the walk back to the office. He hadn’t worn a tie anywhere other than a date in months, never mind a sweater vest. He had gone native and he liked it, but Pop didn’t approve. 

Back in New York, their SSR coworkers had called Peggy stuffy. She liked New York even on dreary days, as it reminded her of home. She had never visited California. If he couldn’t get Pop to understand why he liked Los Angeles--how everything felt new again--how would he sound trying to explain it to Peggy? At least when he talked to Pop, they always had the Dodgers to fall back on. 

Worse, what if she envied him for his promotion? She deserved to be Chief just as much as he did, if not more. He pictured the electric signal that would carry their words 2700 miles, and he couldn’t imagine it carrying anything good.

He checked to see if Rose was looking, and threw the message into the trash. His newest hire was hovering just outside his office door, and Daniel beckoned the man inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Very kindly beta'd by the lovely indigowild!
> 
> Inspired by many tumblrs who wanted to know what "Because sometimes a three-hour time difference feels like a lifetime," meant.
> 
> Unfortunately a feel I have lots of experience with. 
> 
> Cry with me about peggysous on tumblr: user katiekeysburg


End file.
